On the 11th of February the Chairman of the FIDE Arbiters' Commission IA Takis Nikolopoulos and the FIDE Executive Director Nigel Freeman conducted the procedure of drawing of lots for the Candidates’ Tournament, to be held next month in Moscow, Russia. In the first round, the following games will be played: Karjakin-Svidler, Nakamura-Caruana, Giri-Aronian, Anand-Topalov. The full pairings for the Candidates’ Tournament can be found here: http://chess-results.com/tnr207261.aspx?lan=1

The pairings have been made today in FIDE office in Athens following the Rules and Regulations for the Candidates Tournament of the FIDE World Championship cycle 2014-2016: 1. Players coming from the same federation will play each other in rounds 1 and 8 2. Rounds 6 and 7 have been exchanged to avoid the same colour for three consecutive rounds.

The winner of the Candidates will have the right to challenge World Champion Magnus Carlsen in a World Championship Match which is scheduled to take place later on in 2016.